The Columbia Police Department has released a new public-oriented dashboard where people can access crime statistics.
The dashboard allows users to search for specific crimes, such as gun offenses or burglaries, and view them on a map broken down by geographic beats. The map updates daily with information from police reports that have gone through the department’s review process.
Columbia Police Chief Jill Schlude answered questions at a Monday morning media training for the dashboard. She said the tool is a way to make crime data available to the community and anyone interested.
“Hopefully, this will help increase transparency about what crime is and what crime isn’t in the community and give people a place to go to get information about police reports,” Schlude said.
While the dashboard updates daily, there can be a delay before an incident appears. Reports must first be written, reviewed by a supervisor, and checked by the records unit before being added to the system.
“There is a three-day delay in an incident showing up on the map, so it can go through our internal process of the report being written, being checked by a supervisor, checked by the records unit, and then it would actually go onto the map,” Schlude said.
The dashboard is part of a federal requirement. All law enforcement agencies must now report crime data using the National Incident-Based Reporting System, which is mandated by the FBI.
The dashboard only includes crimes that meet the state reporting definitions and have a completed police report. Calls for service that don’t result in a report will not be shown.
Police Data and Records Supervisor Sarah Jones said that accuracy is key, even if updates take time. For example, an incident might initially be logged as a traffic crash but later reclassified as a homicide if a victim dies weeks later. The system updates to show the change.
“This puts that information right at their fingertips instead of having to contact the Police Department, and I think that it’s important for people in the community to know there’s one place they can go to get accurate data on the crime in their community, and that’s this website,” Schlude said.
The map went live at 3 p.m. Monday.
